


I'd sunk in oceans blue (now they're all frozen over)

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anorexia, Depression, Eating Disorders, Gen, Niall-centric, Other, PLEASE READ THE TAGS/TRIGGER WARNING and be safe, Sad Niall, this is the first fic ive written since 2013, wow im old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3286862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything got washed out in grey, and Niall just disintegrated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'd sunk in oceans blue (now they're all frozen over)

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of eating disorders and depression. Please be careful and safe and know your limitations when it comes to reading about these themes.
> 
> Title taken from the song Collapse by Vancouver Sleep Clinic

Everything got washed out in grey, and Niall just disintegrated.

That’s what he said when they asked him, days and weeks and months later. Stress: the accumulation of mental or emotional strain or tension through prolonged, demanding circumstances; pressure or tension exerted on an object; a buildup, reaching and exceeding a maximum capacity. They asked so many questions, their mouths moving in an indistinct blur of inquiry. Niall didn’t talk that much, anymore. Not without direct provocation. It was one of those little, subtle, changes. The signs that something had gone sour, sticking out desperately loudly amidst an immaculate silence.

Was it only a few months ago that no one asked? Niall tried to remember, but everything from the past seemed decayed around the edges, his memories foggy like a pane of glass on a freezing day. He still recalled the feeling of it all. He was so, so, so tired, and he was so, so, so sad.

Fragments of the past were still blindingly, painfully vivid. Standing in front of a mirror, in a hotel in Zurich. Liam was in the other room, talking loudly into a cell phone. Niall was looking at his arms, the way his biceps pushed out and out, as if reaching towards infinity. He was thinking about his body, and the next seven months of tour that stretched out before him. Niall never really liked his arms much. They weren’t small or firm or solid like the other boys’. He could remember the X factor days, back when they were all kids and no one really cared about appearance. But now there were arenas. There were girls by the hundreds of thousands, girls living in countries that Niall couldn’t pronounce the name of. Girls that had pictures of him, that could pick out every flaw. (Niall could pick out every flaw just fine on his own, but. Still.)

The air conditioner kicked on, and Niall jumped. Looked around. No one could see him like this, shirtless and scrutinizing his appearance. He hastily put his shirt back on and exited the bathroom. Liam smiled, but Niall’s eyes got trained on his arms. Not small, exactly, but Liam’s biceps were hard and solid and muscular. Niall crossed the room and put on a jacket.

The next day inevitably came, and the one after that did as well. Cities came and went, and Niall gave up on keeping count. The arenas swelled each night with girls, screaming and crying and Niall yearned with all his might to feel what they did. Someone stopped him for a picture on the street. She was inches from sobbing, hugged him like he had done something important, like he wasn’t just very, very lucky (very, very undeserving).

I miss home, he thought, I miss my mam and my bed and Ireland. I’ll get used to it, and then everything will be okay again. Niall was standing in front of another mirror. He wasn’t quite sure where this hotel was, but it didn’t much matter. In front of him, there were two eyes and a nose and a mouth, and a body that Niall disliked and a sad, sad look that he couldn’t escape.

When was it that he started skipping meals?

Harry and Louis were already on their way to the restaurant in another car. Liam frowned (and it was Niall’s fault) and Zayn raised an eyebrow (stop stop stop don’t make their lives hard they don’t deserve this you don’t deserve them). Niall laughed to fill the silence, although there wasn’t anything particularly funny about it. The sound echoed hollowly, died before it really began. “I’m going to head back to the hotel. I don’t feel too good. I’ll probably just get room service.”

Liam nodded and disappeared into the waiting car. Zayn wrapped his arms around Niall’s (enormous) waist and hugged him goodbye. “Gimme a call if you think you’re getting sick,” he said. Niall nodded (he wasn’t) and watched them pull away. He went back to the room. Stared at the walls. Did some sit-ups, because why the hell not (and because you need to, you ate so much at breakfast, don’t you see it on your thighs). He wasn’t hungry, really.

It was something of a thrill, though. The active decision to do something wrong. Niall could stay in the hotel or his bunk on the tour bus and just not eat. He could close his mouth and fake a headache, a stomach ache, the excuse really didn’t matter, because he could stare everyone in the face and just keep empty.

And, god, his body. The more Niall looked, the more he could hardly bear to keep his eyes open. It was changing, his clothed were getting larger and his collar bones seemed a bit excessive in some lighting, but it didn’t really matter because Niall hated it. He hated his body, all of the fat that mocked him, berated him, shrieked at him every time he saw a mirror. In return, Niall let it hurt. He let his stomach ache and his legs tremble. He counted the calories off on his fingers, plugged them into calculators, wrote them down, anything to keep things orderly and neat and in control. The weight went up and down (and down) in accordance to the numbers, he could make it do that. He could lose all the weight in the world, if he wanted to, as long as he kept all the numbers in control.

They were at a sound check, in a stadium somewhere in Midwestern America. The whole band was lined up, and their microphones were mounted onto stands. The arena stretched in front of them. It was colossal, domineering, but without the throngs of people filling the stands it felt impossibly gaunt. Niall stared into the abyss and imagined that he was an ant, gazing out across the ocean. It wasn’t comforting, exactly (because he was still too fat). It wasn’t enough, but then Liam nudged him, and oh, yeah, sound check.

Louis and Liam were on either side of him. Niall was in the middle of an L sandwich. He said so, and they laughed even though it was a pretty pathetic joke. Niall was getting worse at those. He had a headache (when had he eaten last? There was no correct answer, absolutely none).

The music was blaring, reverberating off of the empty walls. Niall tried to envision the stadium later that night when the concert started, protuberant with bodies, all of them singing and swaying. His head hurt worse. They were in the middle of a song, but Niall stopped singing.

In primary school, Niall had learned that the Earth is constantly spinning, but people usually couldn’t tell because they spun along with it. Standing on stage, he might have stopped spinning. The stage gyrated and the floor came rushing forwards inexplicably quickly. Niall reached out and clawed at the air. He grabbed the mic stand, but it wasn’t meant to hold up a person (not a person this fat). Louis was there in an instant, luckily, catching Niall as he swayed. They stood in limbo for a moment, and then Niall’s legs gave out. His eyes abruptly shut.

Seconds (minutes) later, Niall opened them again. His head was tilted towards the stage lights that hung from the vaulted ceiling. They spun like a Ferris wheel, lit up in red and green and blue. It took a minute for everything to still. He straightened up (oh, he and Louis were sitting on the floor), but Louis kept his arms wrapped around Niall. Everyone was staring. The music had stopped. Niall felt his face heat up.

“What the fuck, Ni?” said Harry. He and Liam and Zayn were crouched around Niall and Louis, forming a fretful semicircle. Niall was leaning against Louis (trying not to crush him). “Sorry,” he said, and grabbed his head, because wow, okay, everything was whirling again. Louis gently shifted so that Niall’s head was laying in his lap (it felt heavy, everything was heavy, like he was sinking into oblivion).

“You didn’t eat anything at lunch today,” said Zayn, and it came out harsh. Niall hated it when Zayn got concerned. Angry as he could sound, it was his expression that stung the most. Some cocktail of sadness and disappointment and, most sharply, a fear that Niall couldn’t properly handle. He couldn’t bite out excuses (lies) and look at Zayn, not when Zayn looked like that.

“You didn’t eat breakfast either,” said Liam. There was an undercurrent to his voice, just this side of accusatory. “You said you were going to grab something on the way to our first interview.”

“I guess I got distracted,” said Niall. Louis’s hands were tracing patterns onto his scalp, mapping out planes and angles and figures. “Now that you mention it, I probably just got, like, hungry or something. Sorry.” He pulled himself up (everything kind of hurt, though, and Louis kept a careful hand on his back). Everyone was still looking at him. Niall imagined sinking down and down, beneath the stage and the floor and the earth below.

Someone pressed a bottle of Gatorade into his hands and Niall took a sip (too much, everyone is looking, they see how fat you are). They had to start rehearsal again, they had already wasted ten minutes (Niall had wasted ten minutes) and had been running behind before that. He stood up. He sang his solos and the choruses, and if anyone noticed that he wasn’t drinking his Gatorade, they didn’t say.

That incident marked the beginning, though. That night, he went to his hotel room early, feigning sickness. All day after he had fallen – he refused to say fainted – one of the boys had been pressed to his side, coaxing a granola bar or some almonds or even just water into him. Niall felt like a stuffed animal being packed with white foam, bulging and heavy and full. He didn’t like it. Zayn tried to come in later that night with soup, but Niall kept his eyes shut and his mouth drawn into a thin line. He didn’t see Zayn’s face, but he felt a pang of guilt nevertheless (why are you making this so hard for him you don’t deserve this, you don’t deserve food). Zayn sighed, a feathery sound that sat on Niall’s chest with a crushing weight. He heard the door open and close, and then he was alone.

Niall awoke later, to someone stroking his hair. His eyes cracked open, but immediately shut again when he caught wind of the conversation taking place around him. It was Louis, again, delicately brushing through Niall’s shock of blonde hair.

“I just- something is wrong here, clearly, and we can’t just let this go.” The voice belonged to Zayn. “I know, I know,” said Liam, “god, trust me, we all know something is messed up. He isn’t… Niall… he just _crumpled_ yesterday. Fuck, if Louis hadn’t grabbed him, he could have fallen off the stage.”

“He still wouldn’t eat anything later,” Harry interjected. “And even if he had, like, how does someone just  _forget_  to eat until they pass out?”

A long pause. Someone shifted uncomfortably.

“He’s lost so much weight, that’s obvious. But he burrows down in eight sweaters at a time. I didn’t think it was so bad.” Niall felt fingers encircle his wrist as Zayn spoke. “God, he’s so _small_ , this isn’t normal. He looks ill.”

“He looks… do you think maybe… I had a friend once who was anorexic,” said Harry, and he sounded so earnestly afraid, but suddenly Niall was  _not okay_  with what was being said. He was not okay with his so called friends talking about him while he slept, or throwing out absurd accusations. That was stupid, Niall ate plenty (too much), he looked  _fine_  (fat), and this whole issue was blown out of proportions. He abruptly sat up, ignoring the way he had to grasp onto his nightstand to keep stable. “Really, Harry? It would be one thing if you were talking behind my back, even, but I’m  _right here._ ”

 Everyone looked back and forth at each other for a moment. Silence stretched across the room, heavy and emphatic. Louis was gaping, a bit like a fish. It would have been comical, almost, but the fear in his eyes sucked all of the humor out of it. Niall was abruptly tired of the whole façade of concern and ignorance and everything that was being projected towards him. The boys didn’t really care about him (how could anyone). They were treating him like a liability (which he was), and they needed to stop or he couldn’t handle it (Niall really, really couldn’t handle much more. His head hurt and his body hurt and his stomach hurt and he just hated himself so much, he just needed to not eat, he just needed to not hurt so much).

 He didn’t say that, of course. Everyone looked ready to pounce at any sign that something was wrong. It was ironic, almost, considering how long Niall had sat there and hurt, had been so sad, sunk down to the bottoms of oceans only to fall over at rehearsal and get this kind of reaction. Niall couldn’t handle it. “Please, you guys, stop. I’m  _fine_. I’m a little under the weather, that’s why I fell down. Harry, I can’t even believe you would  _say_  shit like that. That’s not even funny at all.”

They all wore matching guilty expressions. Zayn’s hand was still holding onto Niall’s wrist, but Niall jerked away. The look of hurt he got for that was enough to get him onto his feet and headed towards the door. Liam grabbed his arm. Niall tried to jerk away, but he held tight and Niall was so tired and he wasn’t very strong (too much fat), and he stood there feeling tired and trapped.

“Niall,” said Liam. His voice was calm, authoritative. An anchor, something to hold Niall in place, so he stopped struggling and listened. “Niall, you have to talk about this. Don’t bullshit me. You collapsed. Clearly something is messed up. Just tell us what.”

Niall shook his head frantically. “I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m so tired though, I just need to sleep, and you guys are all acting so weird, it’s stressing me out. I just need you guys to be normal. Please.”

Harry played with a loose thread on Niall’s blanket. He spoke up slowly, disarming. Harry was like that. Always careful. Niall felt like a trapped animal being coaxed from a corner. “Ni, how can we? You’re… not okay, right now. We love you. But you have to let us help you, and you have to take care of yourself. If you’re… if you’re not eating, we have to do something about that. And I don’t think you are, and I’m scared. You don’t look good, Niall-“

“I know I don’t look good!” Niall screeched, and no, Harry wasn’t allowed to pull that card because Niall looked like absolute shit. His body was so huge and ugly and squishy and large and bulbous and  _fat_ , no matter how long he went between meals and how gaunt his face got and how shaky his legs got and he _hated_  it, he hated himself, he hated feeling so worthless and so stressed out and so, so sad  _all_  the time, and Harry could stand there with his fucking abs and his pretty face and pretty life. Harry could not stand there and tell Niall how bad he looked, not right now, not

Oh

He might have said some of that out loud, if the looks on the other boy’s faces were anything to go by. And then Zayn was grabbing him, hands around his waist and Niall’s head got buried in his shoulder. Niall’s breath was coming out in jagged, arrhythmic gusts, he could hear it fighting to escape his lungs and enter the atmosphere, salt and water and suddenly he was sobbing. Ugly, clawing noises, ripping out of his throat and his chest like the tears were made of shards of glass. They took all of his composure with them, his face screwing up and his whole body wracking with the force of it all, and Niall was so fucking done.

But Zayn kept his hold on Niall, very possibly the only force in the universe that had any hope of keeping him together. Liam and Louis and Harry were right in his periphery, close enough to reach out and grasp and cling to. Forming a fence around the edges of a precipice, protecting him should he get too close to plummeting. No one said anything for what felt like hours. Then Louis wrapped his arms around Niall as well, and Liam did too. Harry managed to squeeze his way in somewhere, four boys who looked old and young at once, clinging to their bandmate. Ready to catch him, should he fall.

Niall reached out and grabbed hold.

—-

 


End file.
